One year later
‘You just learn to cope:’ Parents talk about loss on grim anniversary
It has been a year since four students were killed in a mass shooting at Oxford High School.
The passage of time doesn’t dull the pain, say the parents of two who perished.
“I think it’s getting harder,” said Jill Soave, mother of Justin Shilling, 17, who died along with Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14; and Madisyn Baldwin, 17. Six other students and a teacher were injured.
“It’s really getting into the permanence of his death,” Soave said. “You just learn to cope.”
Soave joined Tate’s parents, Buck and Sheri Myre, in granting media interviews on Monday, Nov. 28, two days before the anniversary of the shooting.
Buck Myre says being at home is almost unbearable.
“Tate loved where we live. He loved to have friends over,” he said. “Every turn we take is a memory. I don’t like to be home.”
Soave said she is dealing with post traumatic stress disorder and is unable to work. It takes all of her energy to be a supportive mom to her two other children. Simple tasks are difficult.
“It’s like pushing through mud,” she said.
Ethan Crumbley, then 15, opened fire at school with a gun he had hidden in a backpack, just hours after he and his parents met with school officials concerned about a violent drawing and an Internet search on ammunition that teachers had discovered.
His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, declined to take him home after the meeting. They told school officials they would seek counseling.
Ethan Crumbley pleaded guilty last month to numerous charges, including murder and terrorism. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole.
His parents, who have been jailed since shortly after the shooting, will go on trial for involuntary manslaughter next year. Prosecutors say they ignored obvious signs he had serious mental health issues, failed to get help, and instead bought him a gun as an early Christmas present.
Keeping their memory alive
The Myres and Soave, meanwhile, say they want their children to be remembered for their kind, thoughtful ways.
“I would love Justin to be remembered for how he lived his life — just really being a sweetheart,” Soave said. “He was always present for people.”
Buck Myre said his son was a “well-rounded kid,” who gen
uinely cared about people but could be goofy, too.
“He loved to make people laugh,” Buck Myre said. “He was probably the most underrated class clown at Oxford High School.”
“We hear about how he was helping somebody through something, and then you’ll hear about something stupid he did.”
Attorney Ven Johnson represents the Myres, Soave and the families of numerous other students who were injured or witnessed the shooting in lawsuits that allege the Oxford Community Schools were negligent.
One year later, all of these people are still hurting, Johnson said. And it’s a hurt that never goes away.
“You can’t ever forget about that day,” Johnson said. “You hear it from people affected by Columbine and Parkland, Florida.”
In 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives, the first major school shooting that shocked the nation.
In 2018, a 19-year-old man entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla, and fatally shot 17 people. The gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was sentenced Nov. 2 to life in prison without parole.